You have to hand it over to the creative minds of the African nations to turn a most distasteful comment into a hard-hitting advertising campaign for their tourism industry. The word ‘shithole countries’ uttered by none other than President Trump was aimed at the African nations, together with Haiti and El Salvador.
What prompted Trump to label these countries with this stinky phrase was probably his ire against immigration from these countries. Of course, the President and the White House immediately went into the denial mode.
Evidently, a phrase like this could put off anyone, but not the tourism hub of these nations. In fact, they got inspired by Trump’s comment and went in for some ingenious creative advertising campaigns, turning this negative comment into a positive proposition to woo the overseas tourists.
Sample this, the tourism departments of countries like Namibia, Botswana and Zambia went all out to milk this uncalled for the phrase by positioning themselves as the “loveliest, most irresistible shitholes on earth”, to quote the Wall Street Journal. Even Airbnb, riding on the notoriety of this utterance, has promised to pump in $100,000 for advertising in Haiti, El Salvador and Africa.
Namibia even hired a Trump lookalike to impersonate him in a video to promote their Gondwana Collection. He is seen in the video saying, “We would like to invite you to come to shithole Namibia, one of the best shithole countries out there. Not only is our country a shithole place, even our elephants are qualified to dump large amounts of shit everywhere in our wide-open shithole country.”
Not to be outdone, Zambia’s Facebook page for Zambiatourism.com states “Visit shithole Zambia where the only stars and stripes you’ll have to see are in the sky and on a zebra!”. The caption goes on to say “Where beautiful vistas and breathtaking wildlife are our trump card!”
Haiti did not hesitate to rub in this comment. Fabian Dodard, the creative director of Parkour Studio, an advertisement agency, is all set to run a campaign in Washington DC to show what a shithole his homeland is. His campaign, for which he managed to raise over $6,000 on GoFundme, showcases “Haiti’s shitty landscape, totally shitty people, and year-round shitty weather”.
Botswana, not wanting to play the ‘shithole countries’ theme, officially started using the term ‘waterhole country’ to showcase it’s world lovely destinations.
This is certainly a prime example of turning a racist comment into profitable tourism by the ‘shithole countries’!
More Info: Vice
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